When the Bicycling crew spent a week there for our mountain bike Editors’ Choice testing trip in March, we found only 300-plus miles of trail on more than 103,000 acres of public land. It’s no big deal, really. I mean, some of the trails in DuPont State Forest, like Ridgeline, arc through sun-dappled hickory and white pine forests on such perfect flowy dirt that you probably don’t even need suspension. Oh, you can rail corners like it’s Weekend at Bermie’s, and boost a little air off the plentiful kickers, but where’s the challenge in that?

REEB Ranch michael darter

Now, on the other side of Brevard, in Pisgah National Forest, the trails get a little rowdier and less manicured, with tricky, off-camber root sections and rocky step-downs. You’ll probably use all your travel clattering down V-shaped slots like Upper Black Mountain or Farlow Gap. You wouldn’t want to put your beloved trail 29er through that, would you? If you’ve got an enduro bike, I suppose you could drive an hour north to Bailey Mountain bike park, which features 14 DH trails, 1,000 feet of vertical drop, and a Stewart & Stevenson LMTV that serves as the shuttle.

The riding is so good, it’s the reason Dale Katechis, founder of Oskar Blues Brewery (they put the can in craft beer) and dedicated singlespeeder, decided to pick Brevard as the location of his second brewery. You don’t like beer, do you? Katechis also bought the REEB Ranch, an idyllic farm 20 minutes outside of town that offers lodging to mountain bikers (it’s where Bicycling editors stayed during our Editors’ Choice test).

Pro tip: Unless you enjoy cozy cabins with gas fireplaces, tucked up a secluded forest alley, do not book the 100-year-old waterfall cabin, where you’ll savor a Pinner IPA on the porch in the evening before being lulled to sleep by the nearby Shoals Falls. Sure, you can ride over the ridge directly into DuPont the next day, but then you wouldn’t get to use your car!

The Hub and Sycamore Cycles bike shops carry only about everything you need, including rentals. Your fondest wish for a hoopty hardtail will be denied, and you’ll be forced instead to hit the trails on stuff like the award-winning Santa Cruz Hightower. After your ride, you might be waylaid by a Highland IPA on the sunny patio.

Doesn’t all that sound terribly bad? Yeah, you don’t want to do that. After all, if you do, then you’ll learn how truly amazing Brevard is—and then we won’t have the place all to ourselves when we return.

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